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Tuesday, September 22, 2009

If management rhetoric is anything to go by, the post-industrial workplace should be a pristine model of participative democracy. Strict, Taylorist routine has been has been out of favour, both economically and culturally, for well over thirty years now. It has been replaced by an emphasis on ‘teamwork', ‘the psychological contract', ‘dialogue' and ‘participation'.

William Davies is a Demos Associate and a Research Fellow at the Institute for Science, Innovation & Society, Said Business School. He blogs at potlatch.org.uk

Earlier this year, the UK's Department for Business, Innovation and Skills commissioned David MacLeod, a management guru, to carry out a review of ‘employee engagement' as a necessary factor in Britain's future prosperity. Again, the case for flatter, more interactive relationships was made.

But what does any of this have to do with democracy or dispersal of power? The republican agenda, advanced by theorists such as Stuart White, Quentin Skinner and Philip Pettit, stresses the need to tackle forms of domination and restraint on positive freedoms, in all facets of society. The workplace can not be exempt from this sort of political critique. And yet a common assumption about the status of firms in society suggests that they sit in a political vacuum, allowing their decisions and structures to be only evaluated in terms of economic efficiency.

The problem with the managerial ‘participation' rhetoric is that it only values human autonomy to the extent that it contributes to productivity and business performance. Hence a growing feeling of irony pervades our workplaces, as described eloquently in the sociology of Richard Sennett, and conveyed brilliantly in the BBC sit-com, The Office.

We no longer mean the words we speak to each other at work. The rhetoric of equality and power appears to exert no friction on the dominant, Anglo-Saxon capitalist model, in which management power is unchallenged, so long as value is constantly returned to external shareholders. Some recent studies have shown a gradual decline in the number of employees who feel they have considerable control over their work.

The republican agenda privileges a distinctly political form of autonomy, and demands to see it within firms just as much as anywhere else. What is truly radical - and potentially disruptive - about this is that there will be cases in which political autonomy and democratic empowerment is privileged over economic autonomy and productive empowerment. There may be cases where workforce representation and consultation should exist, regardless of any discernible economic benefit.

Co-operative structures, in which labour hires capital rather than vice versa, are one institutional form that republicans such as White and Nien-He Hsieh, have celebrated. The original meaning of ‘profit-sharing' is also worth returning to: the notion is that, once both capital and labour have received their ‘wage', that any remaining surpluses should be split equally between the two. Companies that were organised to uphold this principle would still be capitalist and profit-making, but they would not be profit-maximising. This represents a positive departure from the neo-liberal, shareholder value-oriented model of the firm.

Yet these are difficult arguments to mobilise in a policy culture that still seeks to diagnose all social ills using neo-classical economics and its derivations. Management theorists are perhaps even harder to reason with, given that many of them falsely believe that they are already committed workplace democrats.

Perhaps, then, a more plausible political-economic agenda for the firm would be to define a concept of employee autonomy that could deliver or balance empowerment as both a political good and an economic good. New Labour's obsession with the ‘win-win' option has left many critics jaded, once it emerges that the interests of capital are never in practiced compromised. But there are sincere opportunities.

Various forms of mutualism and employee ownership deliver exactly this balance between political and economic goods. They demonstrate that a private sector organisation can be high-performing, well managed and profitable, while offering employees tangible forms of control over their working lives and environments. Ownership, as republicans frequently argue, brings with it political freedoms as well as economic rights. Virtuous circles are possible, in which the higher levels of deliberation and responsibility within companies spills over into higher levels of employee commitment and knowledge-sharing.

In an age when declarations that ‘our staff are our number one asset' are met with cynicism, a whole new ownership model is needed if workplace democracy is to be taken seriously once again.

As with Bill C-15, the only apparent hope is that there might be the 41st general elections called in the Fall of 2009, before Bill C-6 becomes law.

Right now, it is still

Code Red for Natural Health Industry:

The Bill C-6 Missile has been launched!

Protect Your Constitutional Rights

Health Canada Needs Checks and Balances

Government has introduced Bill C-6 which is a repackaged Bill C-52.

At present, the government has not yet re-introduced Bill C-51, perhaps because there was too much resistance against Bill C-51, thanks to the hard work of thousands of Canadians who understood the importance of having a separate and distinct Act for natural health products.

Contrary to what politicians may be telling you, Bill C-6 certainly is not there to increase our access or to increase public safety with regards to natural health products. We have already lost tens of thousands of safe natural health products from health food store shelves. It is evident that our government is marching to the drum beat of the multi-national drug corporations.

Bill C-6 is being introduced in the name of "public safety," however, it paves the way for our government to have foreign regulations brought in simply under regulation changes without the scrutiny of parliament (we the people), thus eroding our rights and freedoms as sovereign beings.

NHPs are treated for regulatory purposes as a sub-category of "drugs;" however, one wonders if the omission from Schedule 1 may be a deliberate semantic loophole? In order to avoid confusion, we must insist that Natural Health Products be specifically named in Schedule 1. Failing to do so, could further jeopardize and eliminate thousands more natural health products.

Bill C-6 gives powers to inspectors to stop the importation or sale of a product and to seize property and documents, based entirely on the inspector’s "belief" that a product may be harmful. There is no requirement for the inspector to produce any documented proof nor scientific evidence of harm. There is a requirement to get a warrant if the goods and evidence to be seized are in a personal dwelling; however, such warrant could be issued over the telephone by a judge who would base his decision entirely on the unsubstantiated "belief" of the inspector.

Fines are exorbitant:

up to $5,000,000 and/or imprisonment for 2 years.

Bill C-6 gives Health Canada the power to levy criminal penalties for what are nothing more than alleged violations of departmental regulations. All a person has to do to commit a "violation" is to contravene a bureaucratic "order". It does not matter if the violation was unintentional, if no one was harmed, if there was no intention to harm, if there was no victim and no crime. Inspectors are also given the right to enforce "on the spot" fines much like parking tickets. Picture this newly formed army of inspectors running around handing out $5000 fines for even minor infractions. All appeals are handled by the Minister as opposed to the Courts.

Bill C-6 is merely one more step that implements the overall agenda of the banks, and the corporations around them, taking more complete control of every aspect of life, to extract profits, while nobody will be left that could effectively resist. That is an imminent danger! Everything that enables the established money system to control Canada today, (through our already corrupted political processes) continues to enable enormous global corporations taking control of every aspect of how Canadians will live.

Unfortunately, about the only things left you can do is to try to beg big political parties that serve the banks and big corporations to do something different.

Write to YOUR Members of Parliament?

No stamp is necessary.

Link to your local MP offices info:

http://canada.gc.ca/directories-repertoires/direct-eng.html

Write to other Members of Parliament?

The Prime Minister,

The Right Honourable Stephen Harper,

80 Wellington Street, Ottawa, Ontario K1A 0A2

Harper.S@parl.gc.ca or pm@pm.gc.ca

Fax 613-941 6900

The Minister of Health;

The Honourable Leona Aglukkaq,

House of Commons Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0A6,

Telephone: 613-992-2848,

Fax: 613-996-9764,

Email: Aglukkaq.L@parl.gc.ca

Even a significant group of Conservative MPsare getting enough pressure from their peopleto put some pressure upon the Health Minister?

Without adequate action from concerned citizens,these laws might become the law inside Canada.

You may lose your access to dietary supplements.

More importantly, each of these kindsof laws are steps to advance agendas.

Things keep on coming around, so thatthe worst accomplished in one countrythen becomes the next standard down,in insane races towards the bottom ...

There is a clear warning to Canadians that vitamin consumers globally may be affected by the European Food Safety Authority, combined with the European Commission, that will be unleashing more regulations from hell.

Those regulations from hell may make their way into the Codex Alimentarius because the EU seems to politically dominate that Codex.

Every additional step on that agendaadvances lies backed up by coercion,& long-term results arecollapses and genocide.

International trade treaties are being used to advance the profits of corporations, against the interests of most other people. The realities these kinds of laws create will be more steps towards enabling international regulations to control what kinds of vitamins and herbs Canadians can consume. This will ultimately be done to benefit private profit, although those laws will be be promoted by professional liars hypocritically promoting "public health and safety."

Protecting the public against bad products is a typical excuse used to implement controls and regulations that force people to abide by inferior products that profit some, while superior products, that would not have been as profitable, tended to be discredited or destroyed by government/corporation propaganda/regulation campaigns.

Relentless pressures from the people with the most money to campaign for their interests set in motion measures that will ensure they will make the greatest amount of profits, by making their products the preferred ones, while others are discriminated against.

Generally, "trade treaties" are for the benefit of investors to obtain profits through their corporations.

Overall, agribusiness is interested in profits, and the power to control culture to maximize profits for the owners of those businesses. It does not care about the health of consumers, nor any other aspect of the long-term future. The strategy of the agribusinesses and pharmaceutical companies etc. is to maximize short-term profits, regardless of any other consequences. Controlling people to benefit shareholders is their primary purpose. Some of the profit made has been systematically used to corrupt the political process, and every aspect of food and drug law has been corrupted by that funding of the political process, driving vicious spirals of money and political power.

Each controlling law or regulation will tend to be another step down that spiral staircase of political corruption, taken by professional liars and immaculate hypocrites to actually accomplish the opposite of what they claim they are doing.

Step by step, all controls over foods and drugs are being directed to benefit the pyramidion people at the top of the social pyramid’s fascist plutocracy, while harming everyone else more and more. That fascist plutocracy already controls Canada, and Canada is already integrated as a small component of the global fascist plutocracy.

In a sense, cannabis laws were the mostextreme examples of the overall patternof political facts demonstrated by Codex.

Unfortunately, there IS a real pattern.

Canada is NOT some genuinely"free and democratic society."

Canada is a fascist plutocracy.

That is true everywhere one looks,and the people who controlled allof the governmental regulationshave a relentless agenda going.

Every other consideration has beensystematically defeated by the longhistory of corrupted political funding.

http://www.larouchepub.com/other/1995/2249_windsor_food.html

THE MOST EXTREME EXAMPLE IS CANNABIS!Cannabis should be food first.

Hemp seeds are the single best sourceof protein, and oil, for human diets ...

However, we all are now actually living inside of aBizarro Mirror World, where things are backwards.

In principle, plant-based protein sources might about10 to 20 times cheaper to produce than animal ones.

That makes one have to wonder what is the BIZARREcultural history, that has ended up inverting us all???

It makes one realize how, again and again,the triumphs of lies and coercions controlhow cultures have developed in society.

Cannabis should be food first, & the waythat cannabis food was criminalized is themost extreme example of general patterns.

The ways people live inside North American civilizationARE controlled by triumphs of dishonesty, backed upwith violence, & EVERYTHING about how they livehas become integrated aspects of that evil whole.

The lifestyles of the vast majority of peopleare due to triumphs of political corruptions.

The single best plant sourcefor protein and oil IS hemp!

However, hemp was made totally illegal for decades,and hemp is still suffering from insane restrictionsapplied against marijuana to limit growing hemp.

That fits inside of an overall pattern of agribusiness. Everything that the global fascist plutocracy got away with doing to cannabis, it intends, and is now prepared to do, to all other herbs and nutrients. The total package of perversity that is exemplified in the case of cannabis is set to be systematically applied to all other food stuffs and drug substances. The same ways that the truth about cannabis has never made any difference to cannabis laws, because those laws were always based on huge lies, backed up with coercion, those patterns of abuse are now in the pipeline to be applied to everything else. The same ways as that inferior products were promoted, by wiping out cannabis as a competitor, are going to be repeated throughout every other domain of food and drugs.

There is already set up to be an almost total triumph of the global forces of evil over the lives of all Canadians. At the present time, it looks just as probable that Canadians will be as idiotic and incompetent to stop these developments from impacting on every aspect of food and drugs in their lives, as they were unable to prevent or fix the insane situations created by cannabis laws. The path we are on now seems to be for the total triumph of legalized lies, backed up with legalized coercions, to be applied against Canadians, while most of those Canadians will be brainwashed to believe in the bullshit that this is being done for reasons of “public health and safety.” Everything we have seen in decade after decade of pot prohibition is set to be repeated on an enormous scale, as applied to all other foods and drugs.

The familiar patterns of social facts whichworked to make cannabis criminal areset up to be repeatedly applied toeverything else that is similar.

The same patterns of the uselessness of the political processes, already controlled by the corrupted big political parties, is set up to be repeated, to make protests fail to work to prevent these evil things the wealthy elites are planning to implement. The same ways that we are stuck in a vicious spiral of mass media promoted propaganda, and biased editing of the news, are likely going to be repeated again, & again, in every other similar domain. The same ways as the vast majority of Canadians will continue to have NO way to organize to resist that actually works will probably replay itself with respect to all other food stuffs and drug substances. At the present time, there are no reasonable grounds not to expect everything will continue to get worse and worse, faster and faster, while Canadians will continue to NOT find any effective ways to be able to respond to resist. Everything that enables the banks and enormous corporations to control the political processes, by controlling the mass media, etc., which determines electoral success, which delivers political power only, and almost totally, to the big political parties, which then can continue to use that power to make the political processes even more unfair and slanted in favour of them, and against any real opposition, will likely continue to unfold. All alternatives will probably continue to be fragmented, and unsuccessfully squabble, while the agenda that divides and conquers them runs amok. Thus, there is currently a deep connection between Bill C-6 and Bill C-15. The ONLY hope now is for a snap election before they become law. Otherwise, all the same reasons why cannabis will get even more criminalized, with relatively trivial exceptions, will soon also be applied in similar ways to other foods and drug substances. All the problems manifested in pot politics are likely to repeat themselves again, on an astronomically larger scale.

All the reasons why we have failed to stop criminalizing cannabis are probably going to reoccur as we fail to stop Codex Alimentarius effectively criminalizing all good foods and drug substances, while it enables the inferior products to be promoted and sold for greater profits. Thus, the vicious spirals of money and political power will feedback into themselves. Thus, there will probably not be any effective opposition possible, since only the big, more mainstream, political parties, that are dependent on the established banking and other corporate powers for their continued electoral success, will maintain their systems, run by professional liars and immaculate hypocrites, as our civilization declines and falls, from too much "success" from the triumphs of lies, backed up with coercions, as we saw developed against cannabis, and now, more & more, we are seeing the same methods applied against everything else that are foods or drug containing substances.

There is clearly a war against consciousness going on, and the vast majority of people are clearly losing that war. Indeed, they are losing so badly that most of them do not even know that they are already the victims of that war.

Some steps inside the cycle use food as a weapon,since controlling the food controls people, whilecontrolling money then controls food & people.

Social facts that cultivating cannabis was criminalizedillustrate these overall patterns of political corruptionwhere a variety of natural alternatives were systematicallydiscredited and destroyed, in order to make sure that otherinferior products, that could be patented, and monopolized,were promoted, & given every possible advantage by thebiased systems of the governmental laws and regulations.

The pattern of government subsidies for food productionis an inverted pyramid where the more healthy the food,the less likely that kind of food is going to be subsidized.

While the less healthy any ‘food’ may be,the more likely that was to be subsidized.

Prohibition of pot merely takes that trendto the logical extreme, in the Bizarro Land.

The single best food for people was criminalized!

Lies and hypocrisy about "safety and public health"where employed to justify all the legislation whichhad mostly opposite effects upon the public health.

The profits made from deceitful monopoliesthen return as more political corruption ...enabling funding of the political processesto take another turn towards corruption.

http://www.pcrm.org/magazine/gm07autumn/health_pork.html

We treat food animals in immoral & inhumane ways.

Animals that we eat for food are now raisedin industrial production places, where theyare fed things that governments prop up.

Factory farms have destroyed family farms.

We should apply more science and technology to food.

However, we should not have the decisions about howto apply science and technology to food supplies becontrolled by the imperatives of fascist plutocracy.

All together, we end up with very low quality animal food,that have their unreasonably low price in the supermarket.

People are eating too much animal protein,due to some systematic political corruptionthat has distorted the entire food system.

In general, people could become healthierIF they ate more plants, and that appliesto eating more plant-based protein & oil.

But, inside a Bizarro Mirror World “reality,”everything has been perverted / inverted.

Boiling it down to an over-simplistic statement:

THE WORLD IS BEING CONTROLLED BY

TRILLIONAIRE MASS MURDERS!!!!!!The most important things are

death control and debt control,

or murder and money systems.

Science and technology tend to be appliedto enable greater dishonesty and robbery.

That is not inherent in science itself,but rather, inherent in the structure ofthe social pyramid systems we have now.

That is illustrated everywhere one looks!

“Health Canada” deliberately createdan extremely bad medical marijuanaaccess program, & they would likelyto do that to other herbs, and so on.

However, the entire political debate isdominated by the big bullies’ bullshit.

Criminalization of cannabisis the single worst example.

But, criminalizing chamomile,and so on and so forth, may beon an agenda for the real system.

Governments had gotten away withhuge lies that marijuana was almostas bad as murder, and therefore, ourcannabis cultivation was criminalized,for sixty years in Canada, and therebythe single best food source becameunavailable, and is still now expensive,and of inferior quality, due to it beingrestricted by marijuana law madness.

IT ALREADY DID HAPPEN THATTHE SINGLE BEST PLANT FORHUMAN FOOD WAS ILLEGAL!

We ARE living in a runaway fascist plutocracy.

BE WORRIED THAT PATTERN SHALLREPEAT ITSELF, AGAIN AND AGAIN!

All current political debates are hypocritical.

We need solutions to chronic political problems.

We should democratize the death controls more.

That possibly sustains more democratic debt controls.

However, at present, with all potential laws like C-6there is almost total triumph of egregious hypocrisy.

Everything that is being doneis a total opposite of excusesgiven for why it is being done.

Orwellian Newspeak is rampant throughout Parliament.

What they say law should dois not what is really intended.

Every aspect of our society was dominatedby a worsening runaway fascist plutocracy.

The best professional liars and immaculate hypocritescontrol the government to implement this evil agenda.